Although ‘Earnshaw and Bailey’ sounds like a crime-fighting duo, it is, in fact, the surnames of two of our Touchstones Creative Writing Group members. On 7th March 2018, Eileen Earnshaw and Jennie Bailey performed a poem that they wrote for KYP’s Ambition for Ageing ‘Standing Together’ event. This had a focus on the First World War where speakers were invited to talk about some of the little-known experiences of the community and those who fought or laboured. From Southern Voices talk on the perspectives of colonised people, the experience of Abdul Jabbar a Muslim veteran who served in the 1980s and 1990s, Steve Butterworth introducing veterans’ work in the community, and Major Dr Paul Knight discussing histories of the Indian army in WW1, there was much to learn. Eileen and Jennie were commissioned to write a poem about women’s contribution to the war. (Jennie has blogged about the experience of researching this here.) On International Women’s Day it seems apt that we are republishing the poem here:

A Woman’s War – Eileen Earnshaw & Jennie Bailey

Each day, we fight this intimate war.

Our hair cut short,

our children in others care.

Each day, we read the list of loss,

names known of men and boys.

Still, faith is constant. Re-enforced

in factories and shops.

Each bobbin wound, each woven thread,

Each length of cloth, each twelve-hour day.

This hurt will soon be over.

Each working hour it’s closer.

At night, we touch his coat,

Still there by the door,

His chair, his pipe, his book,

We leave them there,

as he left them there.

This too a sign of faith.

And we are all the women

who fight in this bloody war.

Weavers with pricked fingers

whose blood ends up in battle.

The clothes we make go to the front:

a piece of me with you.

And the suffragist, the objector,

no coward is she for peace.

She sees the waste of all the lives

holds banners all year long:

‘Equality not brutality’.

See her in winter, in the snowfall:

the flutter of cold white feathers.

And all those lads who fell

and those who made it home.

Who made the munitions? Yes,

this is a lass’s war.

The Canary Girls, their make-up

is jaundice from TNT

from the factory,

but they carry on,

their work a sign of faith.

Faith that’d it all be soon over,

by Christmas became the lie.

Every night they still touch his coat

pop a snook of baccy on the side.

The weavers make the khaki clothes

for the daddies who never came home.

Lovers wept over, but the day comes closer

when one day there’ll be no war.

And here among the looms and frames,

his reality becomes a picture

without essence, the features familiar.

We drag back the memory:

how he was, what he did,

how he could do anything. Everything.

How his shoulders filled the doorway,

darkened the room

as the laughter in his eyes

brightened our world.

The memory of his body,

more real than any image.

Our faith more solid

than a report of death.

The way was clear,

as we weave we,

work, work away the anger.

Work, work away the hurt.

Work, work away the fear.

Work to bring him home.

—

Touchstones Creative Writing Group has received funding from KYP for our work in Rochdale, this allows us to continue to provide high-quality creative writing sessions for the community and a space to connect with other writers.

On 14th August 2016 members of Touchstones Creative Writing Group performed original poetry to help celebrate the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to the community who sided with the cotton picking slaves.

This event -now an annual occurrence -is to raise awareness about the road, the role of the local people involved in the road building scheme and their role in the anti-slavery movement. There’s a video with the poets here from 2016: poetry for Cotton Famine Road. We have reproduced some of the poems written for the event in 2016 and for the 2017 event below:

FREEDOM

For black folk there was nothing but the cruellest life each day.
The whip, the breaking backs as cotton bales were sent to weigh,
While white folk trudged the Cotton Road to reach the cotton mill
Where they would slave in dampness and conditions that could kill.

So many miles away across the endless ocean’s waves,
A Civil War was brewing that could free the captive slaves,
And even England’s poorest joined their voices to the fight
For they could understand the awful horror of their plight.

Then cotton ceased to come as ports were blocked ‘til slaves were freed,
But here, the mills fell silent and the people cried in need,
And walked the tired horses down the Cotton Famine Road
To find no work was waiting and no cotton to unload.

And little children cried because the hunger brought them pain,
And parents didn’t know if they would ever work again.
When one by one the mills began to close or change their path,
For England’s North was altered in the famine’s aftermath.

But like the cobbled Cotton Famine Road that would survive,
The ordinary Rochdale Folk have kept the past alive
And it’s become the future for the cotton industry
Is coming back to Manchester – without the slavery.

Lives in Alabama, twisting and turning like cotton on trees,
as hardship and grievance across oceans interweave.
Fired by inequality, earth trembled with the sound of shot;
the ground stilled when the looms stopped.

Bales began stockpiling, men and industry together dying.
Some slaved in heat, some slaved in cold,
pursuing solidarity in a parallel world.
Children of the revolution laid each cold stone
trying to appease their hunger on the Cotton Famine Road.

For every shuttle stopped, another stone was laid,
with long hard labour Rooley Moor was paved,
while war against slavery raged.
A bowl of rice, a cup of soup, an early grave,
was the pittance both sides were paid.
Gangs without a chain; slaves in all but name.
Alabama blues made front page news.

The Poor Law’s lasting monument to hardship and the poor
lies embedded on the hillside; battered by wind and rain
on the former Catley Lane.

Stretching over Spodden Moor,
As far as eyes can see.
Stone setts, side by side,
stepping stones to victory.
O’er aching backs,
stone ripped hands
capitalist and kings.
Part-time schools, poor education;
Low wages, near starvation.
Slaves in all but name
men who built the Famine Road
could hear their children cry,
for want of warmth in winter,
For clothes to keep them dry.
In fields abroad, or Lancashire
men should be above the beast;
See every stone a protest
that men should all be free.
Behind this simple tenet
United we should be.

The silence in the village crept eerily around
And a quietness hung in the air.
Few carts rattled by in these times of cheerless need.
Men leant upon the bridge, cold, listless;
No one hurried now.

Unlike the earlier years
When the tall mill chimneys would smoke foggily,
And loads of twist and cloth pervade the cobbled streets.
The flower of our working population,
Of finer stuff than the common staple.
And folk would hurry by to the busy factory,
Full of life, full of glee.

Suddenly, the sweet, plaintive song of a young girl
Floated along in the calm, still air.
How could she feel like singing
When they had no clothes to wear?

She pulled her baby close to her,
There was no bonnet for its head,
As with nervous grasp, a timid air,
And downcast eye, she sang as she hugged her little one.
The Chartist orator, Ernest Jones, never forgot the men of Rochdale
And their love of freedom’s truth.
And for the freedom of the black,
Joined towards the Charter of the Englishman’s liberty.

With her sweet song ended and her soft voice fading away,
She had every heart strung to sympathy.
And lifting her eyes to reality,
Burst into a flood of passionate tears.

Lancashire folk were never known to remark
Or hawk their troubles around;
They were always sufficiently worthy of themselves.
But a Lancashire lad had heard her song, and with pity,
Laid down his hat at her place on the cobbles,
And collected for her a few ill-afforded pennies,
He himself giving her a sixpence for her song.

If you’re interested, have a look at this fascinating historical and literary research project that is currently led by Exeter University on the poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine. (Clicking the link will take you to the website.)

After our session on sonnets, Gerry has written two cheeky pieces inspired by New Year resolutions!

New Year’s Resolution revisited

My friends will go for exercise;
The treadmill and the weights await.
No more they’ll snooze until quite late –
Oh no, they’ll greet the sunrise!

And some will hail the salad bowl;
The cucumber and radish, on healthy seed
And leafy greens and tofu will they feed,
Nor will they heed the way their tummies growl.

Now, as for me, the sofa gently beckons;
A stack of books, unread and tantalising…
Forget the gym, no matter what your guru reckons!
I’d rather spend the time in endless fantasising
For resolutions, I have found, do not have staying power…
But reading on the sofa? I can do it by the hour.

New Year’s Resolution Homework

Grey drizzles at my window, no visit cheers the day
Dull boring trees hide every silent bird
No butterflies dance by, no humming bees are heard
More of the same tomorrow, no one will come my way

Off-hand and short the e-mail: ‘Guess you are okay?’
My tired family won’t waste the extra word
Unless, unhappily, a bad thing has occurred…
It cannot be denied; a long time until May

Oh, SOMETHING must be done!
I won’t slump and be dull
Too many days have gone

A New Year’s Resolution, that’s the thing!
With virtuous striving my days will be full
And if I fail…I will indulge in one wild fling!
OR (slightly more combative)
A New Year’s Resolution! I shall fight, alone!
Of ceaseless striving my days will be full
And if I fail, I shall with braver deeds atone.

Pulling Threads, Touchstones Creative Writing Group’s performance arm, are being busy bees this summer; they’re preparing for a piece of original writing. Here are notes from the meeting and the performance dates.

To commemorate one of the “greatest of the four battles of Ypres”, Pulling Threads are pulling together a piece of original drama based on testimonials from the battle. Annette Martens is the artistic director for this production which features dramatic true stories, horrific images, and sound. The italicised phrases are from some of the writers.

“Here are our gifts to the Gods” “roads that lead to the killing Fields”
The voluntary group of players have all contributed pieces to this performance in order to capture the human element; it’s not just the facts, the sheer number of the dead or the time and slog of the battle it’s about getting to the heart of it. The facts are woven in and there is compromise and cooperation in editing the pieces.

“I don’t usually carry a weapon, I carry arms… I’m a stretcher bearer”
There is pathos, and sympathy, created for the characters – the nurse, the stretcher bearer, the man who had his face half blown off but lived. And there is so much mud, a mud world, who thought you could drown in the battlefield?”. The emotion and empathy that has been created shows that “bravery can take many forms”.

“The government, the general, and the Kaiser sat down”
For a small piece of land many gave their lives, and as the performance comes together the script is becoming stronger. Any audience will be moved.

After the last creative writing session, here’s a poem by Ray Stearn inspired by one of the workshop prompts. Click on the link to download the piece with how Ray set it out: Ray Stearn ‘After the Storm’.